NBC SN comments on SP -- Tanith White and Ryan Bradley. They were nice and quiet during the skating!
During the group warmup:
T: Now we take a look at Shoma Uno. No World medal yet, but he’s poised to make a breakthrough with what he’s got in his “tool belt”.
R:We haven’t even spoken about him yet. This guy has the goods. He’s a prolific quad jumper, he’s a beautiful skater, he understands the music. I did a show with him earlier this year and watched him land 5 quads in a show program under spotlights. He has a ton of confidence.
R: Opening with the second most difficult jumping pass – 4F. Just beautiful! Where we’ve seen little mistakes in the past are the tight landings, making it difficult to add the 3T on for the combination. No problems today. 3A, a little to the outside, but right back into the choreography.
T.: Well, it’s tough enough to follow an Olympic champion but it’s even tougher to outskate him. In my opinion that absolutely did.
R: In all facets -- he jumped better, his program is stronger in my opinion, he was spinning very fast at the end, he has a unique entrance into the combo spin. He is such a talent. I know there’s a lot of hype around Yuzuru Hanyu, as there should be. But Shoma is so well rounded. We talked last year that between him and Boyang , Boyang is the better jumper. Shoma was the more complete package. Now all of a sudden, Shoma is adding the quads to the repertoire and he is growing as an artist still.
T. It was a beautifully complex program too with so much content frankly, compared to Yuzuru’s.
R: What’s really amazing to me is this entire program he’s in character, he’s so strong, he has this amazing presence. The moment the music stopped, he pumped his fist and had this little smile on his face, and he looked like the youngster he is, just enjoying the moment. It’s incredible to me to be able to portray such strength and confidence, because we often forget how young these guys are. The poise to be able to do this at a World Championship is just incredible.
T.: Some of those landings like we saw there on the 3A with that open free hip are what often gets him into trouble, but today he was able to hang on.
R: It definitely makes things a little harder. When you are adding on a 3T for a combo, you have to be able to fight a little harder. If he can learn to control those landings, I can’t even imagine what he is capable of. Being able to do those things with that tendency on the landing is amazing.
Bottom line, thank you Stephane for helping Shoma. And I've loved reading about how much he enjoys working with Shoma
(Shoma does seem to have a lot of fangirls though haha)
